Project Offset: A storm is coming

coelurus · Post by **coelurus** » Sun 06 May, 2007 12:17 pm

Some new media from Project Offset:

http://projectoffset.com/astormiscoming/

It seems they upload new media when they get up to a certain number of unique visitors. Clever way of spreading the word, and I'm falling for it

Help spread the word!

anykey · Post by **anykey** » Sun 06 May, 2007 1:19 pm

I don't know what it is, but I'm hoping it's going to be some sort of fps, and not some lame rpg!
(sorry guys, but I don't have the attention span to handle some of those!)

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Sun 06 May, 2007 1:26 pm

how do they know you're an unique visitor?
would a script that reloads and clears cookies work?

anyway, nice pics, almost looks like they're taken with a camera..

merthsoft · Post by **merthsoft** » Sun 06 May, 2007 4:02 pm

It's an fps

Delnar_Ersike · Post by **Delnar_Ersike** » Sun 06 May, 2007 4:34 pm

Almost...fainted...at...graphics....*faints*

hop · Post by **hop** » Sun 06 May, 2007 6:15 pm

The graphics remind me of 4 years ago, but with bloom.

I spot huge polygons in the models and failmapped pixels in the textures.

But that doesn't apply to the images of this game that I saw like a year ago, just those in your link.

coelurus · Post by **coelurus** » Sun 06 May, 2007 10:41 pm

It's a mix between FPS and RPG, kinda like Oblivion I guess. Remove "astormiscoming" from the link and have a look.

What I find interesting is that the town in the unnamed game by VTales looked better than what Project Offset shows. From 2003! And VTales still working on their engine! Nuts.

hop · Post by **hop** » Sun 06 May, 2007 11:23 pm

VTales' The Unknown didn't look better, it's screenshots where just taken at higher resolutions. The lighting techniques are clearly outdated compared to Project Offset.

3d rendering engines tend to get upgraded throughout the development process in games, especially if they take several years to produce.

Project Offset really doesn't have shockingly better graphics than today's games, though it was surprising when the screenshots where first released ages ago, but it does look more artistic than most games. Artistically very close to Oblivion or Company of Heroes. You can really see the benefit of modern engines to the developers and a greater focus on supporting the artistic proces rather than raw next-gen rendering techniques (which everybody these days can implement easily anyway).

All of the technology (HDR, bloom, motion blur, shaders) described on the website have been in games for several years now, they're really just applied better with more support to the artistic views the developers have. In fact, games released very recently have lighting techniques that are a step beyond anything described for either of these games, offering real time full global illumination that only renders smoothly on the very latest generation of videocards and then only the top end.

It's very likely that the engines of Project Offset and other games to come will offer at least the same things, you just won't be able to enjoy those features with today's lower and middle range videocards.

Sadly not even half the text on the websites is likely to apply to the final product, especially where gameplay is concerned.

anykey · Post by **anykey** » Sun 06 May, 2007 11:27 pm

daaaaaaamn...
that's badass. it puts oblivion to shame!

hop · Post by **hop** » Sun 06 May, 2007 11:29 pm

Lol, haven't you guys played Oblivion at max details or something?

Look at some of the high res demo vids. Things like the texture quality and environmental lighting really aren't all that impressive any more. Even compared to Oblivion.

anykey · Post by **anykey** » Mon 07 May, 2007 3:24 am

I hate how all the characters in oblivion look ugly 'cause the detail is so high...
and there better be more guns than swords or I'll refuse to play it!

coelurus · Post by **coelurus** » Mon 07 May, 2007 3:46 pm

The lighting technique in VTales' game is of course outdated, but only when it comes to HDR and higher numerical accuracy. There hasn't been a lot of progress otherwise more than various special effects showcased most prominently bu UE3.0. The best looking lighting solution still is precomputed radiance transfer and VTales had that.

There are no games out there with realtime global illumination yet, only tech demos in very cramped spaces (like the shadow bug hunt game, fun

). GI can be encoded with sh but then it ain't full anymore for dynamic scenes (only for static geom).

Renderers usually don't get significant updates during development, the backbone rendering pipeline is very often left alone. Switching between rendering algorithms can be lethal and take several months for an engine that tries to compete with the rest.

Oh, and I hope Project Offset will not feature any guns at all

hop · Post by **hop** » Mon 07 May, 2007 5:58 pm

coelurus wrote:The best looking lighting solution still is precomputed radiance transfer and VTales had that.

No, the best looking is global illumination. And HDR with properly configured shaders can also look better than poorly executed radiance transfer.

There are no games out there with realtime global illumination yet

Buy S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl. Install. Run. ~. r2_gi on. Press return. Feel the need for a new videocard.

Renderers usually don't get significant updates during development, the backbone rendering pipeline is very often left alone. Switching between rendering algorithms can be lethal and take several months for an engine that tries to compete with the rest.

Devine significant. Adding a new lighting technique or two happens, as not having the technique can be far more competitively damaging than doing some more work. There's no switching involved as you want compatibility for the older techniques as well.

Oh, and I hope Project Offset will not feature any guns at all :)

Same here.

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Mon 07 May, 2007 7:04 pm

Did you see how they promote their normal mapping? "wow normal mapping!" anyone can write a normal/bumpmap shader.. HDR, fullscreen Bloom, motionblur, none of it is new, and even I can write the shaders for them. That says something.

hop wrote:Buy S.T.A.L.K.E.R. ..

I thought buying games wasn't your style?

coelurus wrote:Oh, and I hope Project Offset will not feature any guns at all

so do I, guns are not for epic fantasy games.

I'll give them that displacementlighting is cool, and if they really generate their shader on-the-fly then that's cool too.

hop · Post by **hop** » Mon 07 May, 2007 9:20 pm

King Harold wrote:Did you see how they promote their normal mapping? "wow normal mapping!" anyone can write a normal/bumpmap shader.. HDR, fullscreen Bloom, motionblur, none of it is new, and even I can write the shaders for them. That says something.
Yeah, 2 good things:
Developing basic renderers with modern lighting techniques is easy.
Their pr/marketing department is doing their job.

hop wrote:Buy S.T.A.L.K.E.R. ..
I thought buying games wasn't your style?

Of course not.